Existing Buildings Discussion

[Taxman66]

You're kidding right? No I am not considering the Industrial Era innovation of pasteurization. I'm sure you're aware that people were consuming dairy products millennia before that came along.

Yes, that was meant tongue in cheek. Dairy products were around long before glassware however.

 

[ls612]

Can you please tell me what are the others? The pedia for Milk only mentions one.

No, that is correct from a game standpoint, but certainly not how it should be (or how it was IRL).

 

[Thunderbrd]

Yes, I think that was the valid point being brought up. Pottery would be all that would be necessary to have at least localized access to milk from a source of cow or goat, or perhaps even leather would be enough as has been pointed out. I'd like to figure out how to resolve this local access stuff before worrying too much on matters like these though.

Just because you have access to milk for the local people, we all know it doesn't transport easily as it has a very short shelf life - as in without refrigeration its bad within a day. So even if you can store it, if you can't keep it cold enough its ability to be traded is non-existent, which is probably why we have currently kept milk as an officially accessed resource off til glass at least.

But if some methods for providing local access were expanded upon beyond the corporation mechanism and using much the same type of coding that comes from that process, it should be very possible to start enabling resources for true local access soon.

 

[0100010]

If you can set up local access type of coding, you can expand it to any type of perishable products, making trading and trade routes (And the level of upgrade said routes are using) for much more interesting trade capabilities.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Tying in with AIAndy's work on trade mechanisms eh? Interesting... I think he and I will have to give that some further thought...

 

[Yudishtira]

Just because you have access to milk for the local people, we all know it doesn't transport easily as it has a very short shelf life - as in without refrigeration its bad within a day. So even if you can store it, if you can't keep it cold enough its ability to be traded is non-existent, which is probably why we have currently kept milk as an officially accessed resource off til glass at least.

Hmmm yes kind of. This is a property of exposed milk in warm weather. Hardly anyone in England had a fridge when I was growing up, but we certainly didn't go without milk. Of course, it was stored in glass, but ceramics or skins would work just as well. And London is coldish, but it's nowhere near Arctic! Even in warm climates/weather, insulated cupboards and cellars etc. kept food cool and relatively/passably fresh.

Secondly, homogenized milk gets much more toxic (looking and tasting anyway) after exposure than pre-homogenized milk did. Thirdly, we have very high standards these days as to what we regard as undrinkable - people throughout history have - of necessity - been way less picky.

I strongly suspect that cold storage, and even mobile cold storage, far pre-date refrigeration too.

 

[0100010]

Although yes other, containers should suffice for immediate usage, glass is indeed more hygienic than ceramics and leather. Ceramics contains far more pores where stuff get lodged and can live in, leather even more than that.

As for cold, well mostly that is from the availability of ice boxes and icehouses, which we do have a building for.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Taking climate into account in the resource picture is probably a month or three job to complete in terms of programming.

However, it could be perhaps done faster with ice boxes and icehouses as pointed out. Additionally, perhaps AIAndy's trade mechanism could take the terrains into consideration. If all terrains on the map are designated as cold terrains, certain things might be tradeable earlier along only those routes.

I dunno... for now I'm just considering trying to either do something about local resource access or just taking note of the project and pack it away for future work like the unit mothballing project. Just depends on if it could be a few quick adjustments or a real effort.

 

[ls612]

Also, remember that we can always just abstract this. I can't imagine that having these horribly complex trade rules can be fun for players, which after all is the whole point of a game.

 

[Yudishtira]

V29 vanilla: I am experimenting with building Graveyards to get disease down, then scrapping them again a few turns later to save the maintenance. I'll let you know how I go if you like.

Please reduce the maintenance on them. And the tech requirement or whatever it is. By all means add a crime of illegal burial or water-supply-tampering after it's built, but it's really easy to tell people to bury/dispose of their dead (assuming they don't burn them: there's nothing stopping them doing so and it's historically just as appropriate culturally in the Ancient/Classical, if not moreso) away from the water supply. Burials don't have to be ceremonial or expensive to have a health benefit.

On that "why bury?" point, the Graveyard is a prereq for Funeral Pyre is it not? I'm sorry but that's just funny. We need the tech to build the graveyard so that we can burn people instead. Some kind of ceremonial structure like the Sacrifice Altar would be a better prereq (for the Pyre) n'est-ce pas?

 

[Thunderbrd]

You make some good points Yudishtira. I like the way you evaluate. That said, this ball's not in my court but I just wanted to second you on your assertions there which had echoed some of my thoughts too. I would also give some slack to the designers in this dept... they may not just be looking at rationale as much as they may be considering game balance impact, such as may have been the cause for the funeral pyre issue. I do find -10 disease worth pretty much any cost paid at the moment since slaves will push disease levels up to the uncontrollable point quickly and healer units don't yet have the promotions to help them that Law Enforcement units have.

 

[0100010]

Taking climate into account in the resource picture is probably a month or three job to complete in terms of programming.

However, it could be perhaps done faster with ice boxes and icehouses as pointed out. Additionally, perhaps AIAndy's trade mechanism could take the terrains into consideration. If all terrains on the map are designated as cold terrains, certain things might be tradeable earlier along only those routes.

I dunno... for now I'm just considering trying to either do something about local resource access or just taking note of the project and pack it away for future work like the unit mothballing project. Just depends on if it could be a few quick adjustments or a real effort.

In relation to the preservaiton idea and local resources. Ice could be a local resource,
requires Tundra, PermaFrost, Snow, Peak, or Ice (feature) in city vicinity.
(Or just make those the requirement for an early icehouse building)

 

[teakbois]

An idea that popped into my head that this would probably the most appropriate thread for:

Focused settlers, to get a head start for a particular city type with initial buildings.

For instance, a scientific settler could have its cities founded with knowledge inheritance, elder council and creation myth. As the eras increase, the settlers get upgraded with different building lists.

Tie this to traits perhaps, only civs with agricultural trait can build agricultural settlers. Aggressive? free barracks and stables via a military settler. Spiritual? City automatically starts with state religion and a temple.

Just some basic thoughts but i think it would remove a little bit of tedium without sacrificing any scope or strategy (and making some traits potentially more interesting choices)

 

[Thunderbrd]

Interesting thoughts. I'm kinda thinking that specialized settler types might be a bit too much for the team for too little return and not all would appreciate it enough to make it a worthwhile project, even though some of us might like the idea (I do.)

But you've definitely hit on a good mechanism that would assist the concept of having more developed cities come into being when those cities are planted. A tag for Traits could list buildings that get freely added to new cities on founding them provided that the building is qualified for by the techs known. Interesting tag idea indeed. Consider it on the list.

 

[Dancing Hoskuld]

Interesting thoughts. I'm kinda thinking that specialized settler types might be a bit too much for the team for too little return and not all would appreciate it enough to make it a worthwhile project, even though some of us might like the idea (I do.)

But you've definitely hit on a good mechanism that would assist the concept of having more developed cities come into being when those cities are planted. A tag for Traits could list buildings that get freely added to new cities on founding them provided that the building is qualified for by the techs known. Interesting tag idea indeed. Consider it on the list.

We already have a mechanism for that! It is called "Free at Tech" when you have a tech that building is free in new cities.

 

[Thunderbrd]

I know we do. That would handle the more core things. But the Traits could then add some additionals. I'm certainly not meaning the core shouldn't be handled by a more generic method such as that.

But for example, a Protective Leader might plop down a Guard Tower in a new city immediately, even though that wouldn't be something other leaders would gain in their Free at Tech lists.

Basically, the new trait tag would just add some extra buildings to the Free at Tech mechanism based on what traits were owned by the player. In a best case scenario, it would add them rather sparingly from any given trait.

 

[AIAndy]

I know we do. That would handle the more core things. But the Traits could then add some additionals. I'm certainly not meaning the core shouldn't be handled by a more generic method such as that.

But for example, a Protective Leader might plop down a Guard Tower in a new city immediately, even though that wouldn't be something other leaders would gain in their Free at Tech lists.

Basically, the new trait tag would just add some extra buildings to the Free at Tech mechanism based on what traits were owned by the player. In a best case scenario, it would add them rather sparingly from any given trait.

The NewCityFree tag is an expression tag so you can already make it trait dependent.
Like this:

<NewCityFree>
  <Has>
    <GOMType>GOM_TRAIT</GOMType>
    <ID>TRAIT_PROTECTIVE</ID>
  </Has>
</NewCityFree>

 

[Thunderbrd]

That's a building tag right? I suppose it might be acceptable to have a trait effect called from a building in that case. Cool... good to know. No need to create a new tag then.

 

[Nimek]

Why wariors hut is not upgradable to baracks? I think it should.

 

[Hydromancerx]

Why wariors hut is not upgradable to baracks? I think it should.

I think because it is/was Civic specific to Tribalism or something.